I don’t do Twitter but there are plenty here who do. Even though this article is in The Guardian, it makes perfect sense to me.
Let’s stick it to The Donald and unfollow him!! Especially if you are on Twitter
#UnfollowTrump
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If only BBC Radio 4 news would do the same!
Should we #UnfollowRadio4?
I’m saying ‘we’ when I mean ‘you’.
Good idea. Done. I unfollow anyone who is unpleasant or a twat so he qualifies on both counts, on reflection.
I did wonder why I had one less follower recently….
I don’t follow any real people really. Just news feeds, commentators and some music people.
You mean you followed the Donald in the first case?
Yes, when he first started tweeting etc just because I was interested but I rarely notice him TBH. He’s gone now anyway.
I never quite got why it was ironic to have that sewer of shit leaking into one’s environment in the first place. Better to ignore the cnut.
Don’t live in an echo chamber Vince. 😉
OTOH it makes sense to close your window when somebody’s pissing in it.
That’s what Trump would say about his wall.
‘scuse. Bevvy. It helps.
I can’t see how following Trump’s early morning mid-shit tweets would benefit anyone, but I’m concerned about the wider principle of muting voices you don’t agree with.
Social media encourages a lot of ‘faith-based’ opinions. People barricade themselves within the church of their opinions, surrounded by other believers, and take alternative views as an attack on them personally. Their faith is so strong that they can’t understand why anyone would disagree with them. Those people must be a troll, a bot or an idiot. The only reason to engage with them is to contrast their depravity against our purity and remind each other just how goddam superior we are to those cunts.
I may be wrong of course.
I agree which is why I follow a wide range but dump them if they’re actively unpleasant.
It’s the aggressive ones that interest me! It’s a weird thing where the people who most crave the love of their tribe project the most hate outside it.
True but you get them anyway. Every time Jo Swinson tweets anything a torrent of abuse pours from Labour attack dogs repeating their lines about she’s a Tory, she PERSONALLY caused tens of thousands of deaths by supporting austerity, bedroom tax etc etc. You can’t avoid them but following them means they show up on the time line. People who are interesting but I don’t agree with- fine, nasty bastards- not fine but unavoidable.
You make a good point though, it’s really preaching to their own choir – look how much I hate Jo Swinson ergo I’m a good socialist.
OMG Twang called us “DOG’S”. Does he think all humen beins are “DOG’s” or just one’s that believe in equality and justise??? Typical bliarite yellow tory libtard wants POOR People to DIE #unfollowTwang #JC4PM #norealfriends
– that sort of thing?
That’s the one. The key word is LITERELLY as in “LITERELLY caused 20,000 deaths per week due to austerity, see I can copy and paste from the voting record website”.
Or in the other speaker “U lost get over it snowflake Remainer tough shit boo hoo etc etc”.
All very well chaps, and I agree with the analysis, but it cannot be denied that there remains the fact that, among friends, a great deal of gleeful, irrational, fleeting satisfaction may be gained from imagining a grassy knoll, a .50 cal Barrett and a clear shot at the orange maniac.
OMG this Limey libtard commie is LITERELLY calling for the assassination of POTUS!!!! Well we whipped your ass once and we’ll do it agin!!! #MAGA #FUCKUK #emptyinside
I had a funny one yesterday, they reported that Emily Thornberry had said “we must be insane not to suport remain” which would annoy the LOTO office. I tweeted “She’s clearly a Blairite Tory and probably approved of austerity” just for a laugh. Someone had a pop at me – a nice middle aged chap called me a berk and told me to go back to the socialist heaven from whence I came. I replied “Berk yourself, I was being facetious” to which he made a formal apology and said Brexit is getting to him. Mutual Likes and we were OK.
I don’t understand Twitter. However, how does unfollowing mute a voice? Unfollowing is simply not listening. The voice continues to speak just as loudly. If unfollowing suppresses free speech, as implied in the phrase ‘mute a voice’, shouldn’t you follow everyone, including Kim Kardashan? I don’t think we’re obliged to listen to everyone. Twitter is a platform for all but different voices attract different crowds of various sizes.
A poor choice of word – I accept you don’t mute a voice by ignoring it, except to yourself. Well done for picking up on that
I can’t believe that following him is a thing that is happening.
So, let me see if I understand this, everyone [normal] thinks he’s a disgusting human being, but people follow him on Twitter?
Is that right?
#astonished
Isn’t this just what Chiz was referring to above? Most of Trump’s supporters would view themselves as quite normal too, I should think.
I don’t think the news is going to stop reporting his tweets. Not when they relate to current events of import. Ignore him and he’ll go away. Nice dream. Even if he lost a mass of followers he is quite capable of convincing himself he is the greatest in any field, despite what reality might say. I don’t follow him but I see plenty of his babbling via retweets and corresponding responses. Likewise extremist trolls and just people who’ve written something sexist/racist that is deserving of ridicule and mockery that do the rounds. I’ve tried following those of other political persuasions to mine for balance but one eventually can’t take any more. Louise Mensch was one such.
There is no escaping him and his Twitter diarrhoea. However, as The Guardian points out, he is thin-skinned and it irks him Obama has more followers. Those numbers are important to him, even though he blames Twitter for not having more.
Well he’s in a permanent state of irkdom anyhow. Those more moderate, sane, sensible types , maybe even some of us AW folk, who see the futility of having anything to do with the man on social media, aren’t ultimately going to make enough of a difference.
I’ve stuck it to him big style by not joining Twitter in the first place. Take that, Donald!
Me too. I shout at the radio whenever he’s on, along with Gove, etc. Imagine how much worse off I’d be if he was in my pocket as well.
Self-preservation, in my case. I don’t get involved with things where I can’t influence the outcome. That way I have fewer stomach ulcers. Call me selfish, but at least I’m alive.
I can’t face any more Brexit news. I’m convinced it raises my already highish blood pressure and as you say, it doesn’t change anything. I gave up when Newsnight started last night.
I abandoned Newsnight a decade ago. Sleep much better these days.
I found that Guardian article a bit silly.
“It is worth remembering that there is nothing positive to be gained by following Trump on Twitter.” That’s like saying there’s nothing to be gained by reading the news.
“If enough people unfollowed him, it would deal a huge blow to his fragile ego.”
Well, yes, I suppose it would, good luck with that. And if enough people bought David Sylvian’s last album he wouldn’t be retiring.
Right. That settles it. I’m buying David Sylvain’s last album. I won’t actually listen to it and it won’t stop him retiring but I’ll fell I’ve done the minuscule amount I can to help.
That’s the spirit, Tigg! Shame the album’s dead crap though, but that’s hardly the point.
I follow the Donald on Twitter. There is no way if I unfollow him it will make any difference to what he says. OTOH that’s what people say about elections – “my vote doesn’t count”. Except your vote DOES count in elections, and DOESN’T count on Twitter. Not so far anyway.
OOAA
The point is, it matters to him. He is obsessed with ‘ratings’, almost more than votes. He knows the electoral college is in his favour and he has lots of friends and allies who are busy disenfranchising likely Democrat voters.
It’s going to take a damned sight more than an article or two in the Guardian to dent Trump’s twitter ratings so much that he notices it.
I don’t follow him, never have done and see no good reason to do so. Just looking at the reliable news sites now and then and seeing the reactions of those people on FB and in here who choose to keep abreast of his nonsense is quite enough for me, thank you.
People say step outside your bubble, but does anyone really need to in Trump’s case? The man’s a total irredeemable pig. End of story.
I think the world in general would be better without Twitter.
It would certainly be better without Trump.
Just to bounce off Dai’s and Gary’s concern. I think that news and Twitter (tyranny of opinion generally) are different beasts in kind. And of course, it’s hard to know when/where fact and opinion diverge sometimes. Not so long ago, the human knew nothing to very little about events outside of their community. Maybe we still ‘know’ nothing to very little. Hence, mostly what we have is terrible noise. I think to move forward we need to limit the noise. Noise limiting (Let’s call it Dolby for old times sake) seems like a really useful movement.
I saw a perfect example of Twitterthink this morning. The BBC has done a Reality Check piece on Dominic Raab’s claim that he talked about no deal before the referendum. They couldn’t find any evidence of this and said so, and it’s trending on Twitter.
That’s a problem for people whose echo chamber constantly tells them the BBC is biased (or ‘bias,’ as they tend to adjectivise it) in favour of the Tories. In a spectacular display of mental gymnastics, one bright spark came out with “Even the Government’s propaganda agency is calling Raab a liar!”
Of course Dominic Raab will still try to convince himself (and the general public) that he discussed the possiblity of a no-deal Brexit ad-nauseum during the Leave Campaign, and refuse to accept that he might be wrong.
Politicians need to be held to account when they sprout absolute bollocks – the tools are clearly there to prove/disprove their ramblings, but it’s usually only done after the event. If Dominic Raab believes he and Michael Gove regularly disussed the subject, the onus should be on him to prove it.
Rewriting history and distoring facts/figures is what policitians do best these days.
Raab is a conniving, sleazy, weaselly, narrow-eyed, smugly arrogant, lying snowflake with a poor grasp of cross-channel trade routes and a cynical ability to calculate the monetary value of a human life lost to murder by possibly our most loathsome trade partner, a man whose political opportunism makes it appear that he would sell his own gran into slavery if he thought it would convince someone to like him and to stop calling him a turnip.
But that’s just my opinion.
The other day someone tweeted about him “Can you believe this guy has two degrees, was an international lawyer and yet somehow he is a complete fucking idiot”. 😃
Yep, but we’re living in a post-fact/post-truth times, where the “he’s a liar so can’t be trusted” logic doesn’t follow any more.
Even though NF said “£350M for the NHS was clearly cobblers” the day after the ref, the public still voted for him at the next opportunity.
It doesn’t make any sense. Back when I was a kid, I’d ask difficult questions and be told “it’s complicated adult stuff.” Now that I’m an adult, my kids can see simple logical sense and I can only reply “I have no idea why”.
That was Channel 4 Fact Check not the BBC. Check your facts.
Here’s the BBC Reality Check referred to by that name in my post.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49165836
Good work BBC. Channel 4 Fact Check were on this 2 days ago.
To be fair, the BBC do reference both Channel 4’s and The Guardian’s Reality Checks.
I’m constantly reading Right-wingers accusing the BBC of Left-wing bias and vice-versa. Both sides can’t be right.
I am currently suspended from Twitter for calling Piers Morgan and Nigel Farage a pair of treasonous cunts. I have appealed to have my account reinstated, but I stand by my statement…
Also, don’t call him “The Donald”. It’s the equivalent of calling that bucket of incompetent shit in 10 Downing Street “Boris” or even worse “BoJo”…
Yessir!
Is everything a politician ever says on record when they are outside of the House? If Dominic Raab talked about no deal Brexit at a meeting somewhere and it isn’t online – does that mean it didn’t happen? I say this not to leap to his defence but to point out that conversations can and do happen in real time and are often unrecorded. Unless he is being accused of a crime (yes, I know…) he isn’t answerable to anyone.
He claims he warned of a No Deal prior to the referendum in officially recorded interviews with the likes of the BBC. ‘So did Gove’. Neither did any such thing.